Dog wrote:They think that if people stop believing in God, they will become rational beings and rational beings = the key to happy nirvana.

Lol.

Nazis are all about rationality.

There is a thing about how jihadists tend to be left brain/analytical types.

I remember when I was a young pup being raised in a Catholic household, when others would be wishy washy about their religion (not out of reflection, but out of lack of reflection) I was tending towards a very binary vision. If God is almighty, knows everything and will judge you on your every act and that judgement will decide how you spend the rest of FREAKING ETERNITY, how frecking insanely stupid must you be to disobey. Eternity? Bah, I'm going to have fun for a few decades, eternity be damned. How stupid is that. Now being a mild natured type and having had a nice childhood and all, I was going to save people and be nice and convert them with reason (not forecefully). Then, I picked up a bible and thought "wtf is this, it's blatently wrong and if scripture is wrong, then the rest of religious doctrine has no leg to stand on" and I became an atheist.

Being rationally inclined, there was no middle ground. If it was right, it had massive implications. If it was wrong, it was all wrong. Wishy washy positions don't make sense.

It's very rational people you need to be scared of. Wishy washy people just follow social norms.

The kind where we should distrust "infidels". The kind where we try to tell people what bathrooms they should use. The kind that believes that God promised only us, and our like-minded brethren, a certain batch of land. It's all very much exclusionary, Dog.

The kind where we should distrust "infidels". The kind where we try to tell people what bathrooms they should use. The kind that believes that God promised only us, and our like-minded brethren, a certain batch of land. It's all very much exclusionary, Dog.

Nah, mainstream is wishy washy.

Then where the fuck are these people? They certainly seem to be absent whenever the church trots out its dogmatic discourse.

The kind where we should distrust "infidels". The kind where we try to tell people what bathrooms they should use. The kind that believes that God promised only us, and our like-minded brethren, a certain batch of land. It's all very much exclusionary, Dog.

Nah, mainstream is wishy washy.

Then where the fuck are these people? They certainly seem to be absent whenever the church trots out its dogmatic discourse.

I'll grant you that religious people tend to be more intolerant of those outside of their religious views. But that's like saying atheists are less tolerant of those outside of their views or that sens fans think the sens are a good team. It's just facets of in-group/out-group dynamics.

Then where the fuck are these people? They certainly seem to be absent whenever the church trots out its dogmatic discourse.

They are the ones not in the news?

I agree that the news would probably not receive an immense boost in ratings by airing the grievances of moderate Lutherans, but you'd think that if these views really did represent the mainstream of religion there would at least be some visible pushback against the ultra-Conservative factions of the modern church.

The Bytown Boozer wrote:Then where the fuck are these people? They certainly seem to be absent whenever the church trots out its dogmatic discourse.

They are the ones not in the news?

I agree that the news would probably not receive an immense boost in ratings by airing the grievances of moderate Lutherans, but you'd think that if these views really did represent the mainstream of religion there would at least be some visible pushback against the ultra-Conservative factions of the modern church.

"Ultra" something is a problem in group dynamics. Leads to clashes with outgroups. I don't agree that most religious people are "ultras" and if they are I'd think that signals a much deeper problem within the society.

Fight it by looking for and attempting to address root causes of their warriness and by preaching tolerance (by linking to their self interest) -not by telling them their group is wrong (even if their group is leafs fans).

The reality is that most religious people are simply not interested in hearing what a secular heathen such as you or I have to say on this matter. We are excluded from any discourse on religious tolerance because we are from the dreaded "outgroup".

I've tried to have this conversation with religious people and at a certain point you either need to change the topic of the conversation or you'll have to get ready for what will no doubt end in a shouting match where no one is listening to one another.

That's probably because of your approach. You'll get nowhere if you question the "truthfulness" of the religious belief. If you leave that alone and argue that it's in their own interest not to be a jerk, you'll get further.

Also, who wants to argue with religious people on religion? (Or about hockey with leafs fans).

A fun factoid is that people aren't tribal because they are particularly exclusionary. It's in fact the exact opposite. Humans are by far and away the most collaborative large animal. It is very likely precisely this collaboration that makes us "human" -as in it is the driving force behind our completely outsized, massive investment in large brains (relative to body weight). The brain is needed for complex, collaborative behaviour.

Now, we evolved to collaborate tightly within relatively small groups -so we have some issues with globalization. But I mean, give us a break, man. We are a species whose main distinguishing feature is its ability to collaborate and we've managed to take that ability and use it to keep pace with the increadibly break-neck speed of the evolutionnof civilization. For millions of years we were tribal hunter-gatherers. Then we started farming a mere 10,000 years ago (the blink of a eye ago) and BOOM New York city, baby. Not bad, boozer, not bad.

I thought it was one of your "glass half empty" kinda comments. That's the difference between me and you. I'm all like "inanimate matter, worms, monkeys, cavemen, internet...Fantastic!" And you're like "meh, our sinuses are all designed wrong".